This invention relates to an improved storm panel of the type which is made of aligned sections that are connected together edge to edge and which is used to cover window and doorway openings of a building to protect the building against penetration by wind hurled objects or objects which are forcefully applied manually.
In areas where high wind storms, such as hurricanes and the like, occur from time to time, it is conventional to cover openings in a building with protective panels when storm warnings are received. One form of such protective panels comprises a large, monolithic, planar cover or sheet made of metal or wood. Another form of such protective panels is made of horizontally arranged slats that are connected together edge to edge so that the panels may be rolled out of the way, above the opening, when they are not needed and rolled down into a planar configuration when needed. Still another form of such panels comprises vertically elongated flat or corrugated sections, which are made of sheet metal or plastic sheet, that are connected together edge to edge, when needed, to form a composite panel for positioning over a building opening. The invention herein relates to the latter form of panels.
Where storm panels are formed of an assembly of a number of separate sections, it is conventional to align the sections in a generally coplanar arrangement and to connect their adjacent edges together. The connections may be temporary so that they may be released when the panel is to be disassembled and the sections are stored until needed to form the composite panel.
These composite panels that are assembled in advance of a storm and disassembled after a storm, must be capable of resisting not only wind pressure, but also substantial impacts from wind-hurled debris, such as pieces of wood, parts of buildings, etc. Thus, the sections must be made of a suitably strong material, such as sheet metal which may be corrugated to increase its strength or may have additional strengthening ribs or strips secured thereto for strengthening the panel. In general, the weakest portions of such panel assemblies can be along the edges of the sections where they are connected together. These edges may separate under sufficient impact forces. Such separation can permit penetration of the panel by rapidly moving, wind hurled debris or by manually applied, forceful impacts that could occur where the panel is used to cover and protect a building opening against penetration for security reasons rather than for storm protection reasons. Prior sectional or composite panels, in general, have a relatively low threshold of resistance to penetration and their section edges tend to separate in response to substantial impacts.
Thus, there has been a need for sectional type protective panels which have sufficient strength to resist penetration and, particularly, to resist separation of the connected edges of the sections when the panel is subjected to severe impacts. The invention herein relates to an improvement in the construction and in the connections between the sections forming a composite protective panel to substantially increase the strength of the panel and the resistance of the panel assembly to separation of adjacent section edges due to impacts.